Most Promising Artists of May

Our monthly overview

Every month at HumanHuman tons of discoveries are added, but only a handful, are labelled as promising. These artists are agreed upon by our users as ones to watch and are well on their way to becoming the next big thing in music. What you see below, are the top five promising artists, as decided by the HumanHuman community.

Familiarise yourself with these rising musicians and be sure to listen to the full playlist, showcasing all of May’s excellent finds.

Looking at May’s Promising Discoveries, it’s apparent that creativity last month came to us in many forms. The top five finds in particular reflect the diversity that can be found in our current music industry. We’ve been fascinated by the anonymous electronic-R&B outfit DIICE, lured in by Tamino’s profound and dramatic songwriting, refreshed by HANA2K’s minimalist pop perfection, brought to a bass-induced stand still by self-taught talent Saint Mesa, and submerged into Brockhampton’s world of surreal visuals and next level collaborations.

Read about our latest set of Most Promising Discoveries below and be sure to give our monthly playlist a spin too.

26 agrees

Soaring to the top of our Most Promising Artists list this month is DIICE, a trio of producers from London who have so far kept their identity a mystery, instead letting their deliciously glossy, electronic R&B take centre stage. Over the past year since Hillydilly’s discovery, the squad have only made two singles public, but it’s this unpolluted perfectionism of debut “Multigold” and brand new release “Do Wrong” that has drawn in such high praise from our community of music enthusiasts. “Do Wrong” in particular seems to be on the pulse of what electronic and R&B lovers alike are listening out for these days. Chilled trip-hop beats, affective use of trap, a lead vocal that harks back to the ‘90s R&B heyday and a twisting electronic production. We can draw similarities to genre contemporaries like Basecamp, RITUAL and Made In Heights, and yet DIICE’s sound tends to move from familiar minimalist arrangements into swelling dance-dipped choruses that push that luscious vocal to the forefront. While DIICE have proven that their songs have longevity, we’re also hoping that we won’t have to wait another year for their next release.

24 agrees

Sounding like a fantastical mix between Jeff Buckley and Balthazar, the Antwerp musician is coming up as a seriously promising singer-songwriter just six months after Dansende Beren blogger Niels Bruwier came across Tamino’s debut single “Habibi”. Leaving us with an intriguing introduction, the Belgian took a brief three-month break before returning earlier in May with four new tracks, kicking off an extensive Belgium and Netherlands tour. It’s clearly still very early in Tamino-Amir Moharam Fouad’s career, he’s already set the bar exceptionally high with this first EP, simply titled Tamino, and featuring all of his tracks to date. Each song aches with profound melancholy, pain, reflection and empathy. His lyrics remain in the realm of metaphor and imagery, and so we can never be sure of their true context, but what we can ascertain is that his emotion is incredibly real, exercised through gentle acoustics, a sympathetic production and that stand-out vocal. It’s all rumbling lows, passive incandescence, arching crescendos. We’re confident that Tamino has a very bright future indeed.

24 agrees

With that Welsh affinity for pop melodies and flawless vocals, it’s no surprise to learn that producer, singer and songwriter Hana Evans hails from the country’s capital Cardiff. Intuitively discovered by Going Solo five months ago, this young artist emerged earlier this year with the modern-pop pureness of “Jealousy”, which marked a reinvention for an artist who has been received praise from the likes of BBC Introducing since she was 14-years-old. Now 16 and with the new moniker of HANA2K, she’s back to state exactly what kind of musician she wants to be. She’s the kind that has confidence in simplicity, from those bold synths to straight-forward lyrics to steady beats, and yet her overall style and self-production is very sophisticated. Take newest release “Too Close” as an example. That simple guitar melody around around 1:19 is transformed into a sound reminiscent of a ‘90s rave anthem, but paired down with that R&B wave and laptop production. It will be very interesting to see where HANA2K takes her revived sound next.

21 agrees

Keeping with the theme, we have another self-taught talent in the form of 21-year-old Saint Mesa. Last year, the Californian musician released his debut Jungle EP, which was a viral success, with title-track in particular gaining over one million streams on Spotify and over 60K plays over on SoundCloud. Just last month, Saint Mesa followed up with new track “Beads” and once again the listen is taken back to the “shelter of the forest,” with its shadowy recesses, hidden paths and animalistic nature. It possesses one of the beefiest bass lines you’re likely to come across this year, which is the driving force for the mesh of electronic beats and Saint Mesa’s strong vocal. More than an impressive electronic tune, “Beads” also regale a personal aspect of the young creative’s life - anxiety and insomnia. Never an easy subject to discuss, especially through the medium of EDM, Saint Mesa explains in an interview with TIME Magazine that “It was the feeling of slipping from conscious into subconscious; that rift in the middle of your heart that starts beating harder, like a drum in the distance, and slowly it starts getting louder and faster – and then all of a sudden you're wide awake. Those nights drove me to write a song about my anxiety.”

21 agrees

There’s been a buzz surrounding Kevin Abstract’s posse of creative outsiders for some time. Whether you were in there early with discoverer The Indie Curator two years ago, or came across their diverse range in acclaimed debut mixtape All American Trash upon release last year, or whether it has been 2017’s surrealist spins “Face” and “Star” that caught your eye, what we can all agree on is that Brockhampton are a Promising Discovery right now. It’s been suggested that the collective’s founder, 20-year-old Abstract, is “making art for a generation of weirdos” who might be able to connect with the music Brockhampton have to offer. The fact that their genre and style is so broad also bolsters the likelihood that listeners will be able to relate, whether it’s with the acoustic R&B affections of Matt Champion, the bruising rap of Ameer Van, the humorous jibes of Dom McLennon, the silky vocals of JOBA, the creative perspective of Abstract as a musician, rapper and director or any of the drifting collaborators that make up Brockhampton.